House of Traps

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House Of Traps is a Shaw Brothers film directed by Chang Cheh, starring the Venom Mob. It is one of the rarest Venom martial arts films

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production notes
4 Screen Shots
5 External links=

[edit] Plot

When a corrupt prince arranges for the theft of a highly valuable jade antique the emperor dispatches his best men to retrieve it. The only problem is that the prince has hidden the antique in the infamous 'house of traps' from which no man has ever made it out alive. Royal investigator Sun Chien and his men mount a daring raid on the prince's birthday which results in the usual mayhem expected from a Venom's film.

[edit] Cast

Kuo Chui
Lu Feng
Chiang Sheng
Cheng Tien-Chi
Chu Ko
Wang Li
Chen Hsiao Hao
Sun Chien
Lung Tung Sheng

[edit] Production notes

A rare VHS version of the film is available that is slightly viewable with below average Cantonese language audio and no subtitles. There is also a VCD version (which may be a legitimate consumer release or an internal test transfer), equally poor in quality with Cantonese language and English and (unreadable) Chinese Subtitles; of which an disc image has been circulating on various download sites.

The film falls under WTO regulations for fair-use and free distribution and rights to the film are not known or recorded. Though it has be rumoured that Celestial would release the complete film in a remastered format, they do not own the rights to this film. The release issued by Celestial that is currently available is a remaster of approximately 20 minutes shorter than the VHS/VCD version as many of the most damaged series of frames were simply cut entirely. The Celestial version of the film, under Chinese law, is materially different enough to be classified as a new work and is copyrighted as such.

Only a handful of VHS originals are known to exist and the only known original form reel version of the film is owned by Jackson Wu of Osaka, Japan. In an article regarding the film in Film Asia magazine, November, 2005, it was implied that he would not sell the film as it is damaged to the point that it could not be restored in full.